The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation company (BOST) has donated 10,000 exercise books to seven government basic schools in the Bolgatanga municipality in the Upper East Region.
The donation, which was made possible through the BOST’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, forms part of the commitment of the company’s commitment towards the improvement of education, especially in schools within the perimeters of their depots nationwide.
The beneficiary schools include the Bolgatanga Anglican Kindergarten, Primary and Junior High Schools, Tindonsobligo 31st December Kindergarten, Kalbeo-Tindonsobligo Kindergarten School and the Kalbeo-Tindonsobligo Primary and Junior High Schools where 1,998 pupils received five books apiece.
Yaw Antwi Dadzie, the government relations, corporate social responsibility and protocol manager of the company, said similar donations have and would be made to other basic schools throughout the country as part of a hundred-thousand nationwide exercise books initiative.
Dadzie said apart from offsetting the financial burden on parents in providing essential learning materials to their wards, it was also the BOST way of making significant contribution to the improvement of education in the region.
” We [BOST] believe that when we do this, we are going to impact the community in a positive way and also have these children grow to take up positions that will invariably benefit the community,”
On the nationwide book project, Dadzie mentioned that 60, 000 exercise book had so far been distributed in the Northern sector comprising the Upper East, Savanna and Northern regions.
“We started this at the beginning of the year where we began from the Savanna area and that was at Buipe, and moved on to Savelugu, and also Debre. We have distributed over 50,000 exercise books already and with Bolgatanga in addition which we are adding 10,000 books.
“By the end of this donation, we would have done 60,000 exercise books for the Northern sector as part of the 100 thousand exercise books project that we are doing as a company for government basic schools that are near our depots nationwide,”
Dadzie added that aside from the exercise books project, the company was also supporting the university education of some fifty brilliant but needy students from across the country under its scholarship program. He said it was the hope of the company that the huge investments the BOST was making in the area of education would pay off with training of the next generation of future leaders.
“These are not all we are doing in our communities; we have others that we are doing. As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we have a scholarship program that we have put in place for the brilliant but needy students in our impacted communities. We have selected together with the Ministry of Education, 50 people who are in UMAT studying different disciplines in engineering.” Dadzie said.
The headteachers of each of the beneficiary school expressed gratitude to the BOST for the donation.
Paulina Abem, the headmistress of the Bolgatanga Anglican Junior High School, said the books had come at a time when most of her pupils had no learning material. She revealed that the school was also faced with other pressing needs such as lack of a toilet facility and a centre for the teaching and learning of information communication technology.
She said the dearth of the IT tools, especially computers for instance, was taking a toll on the teaching and learning of the subject as it did not afford the pupils the opportunity to learn technology and be abreast with modern trends. She, therefore, appealed to the government and other corporate entities to provide the school with one.
Reporting by Senyalah Castro in the Upper East Region
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